Re: pdf page counting

On 12/25/2024 1:24 PM, legg wrote:

On Wed, 25 Dec 2024 11:47:30 -0700, Don Y
<blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> wrote:
 

On 12/25/2024 7:10 AM, legg wrote:

That was the sort of Reader output that I had in mind.

>
I don't know what it "looks" like in other viewers.  And,
apparently, many don't support searching for page labels;
they think of pages as being *numbered*.
>

I'll pay more attention to the features offered by my
pdf publishing utility, (pdf995) to see what results I
can get here.

>
Can't help you, there.  I use FrameMaker (et al.) for
my DTP needs; they are reasonably well integrated so
I can tell one what I want *it* to tell the others...
>

If I can't wrestle it into shape, I may take you up on
your offer, just to get this out of my hair, after revisions.

>
Truly no problem.  The download and sneakernet into my office
was the biggest "effort".  Adjusting the page labels is:
- open thumbnails
- select a set of pages to be labeled
- open "Label Pages..." dialog
- select style (1,2,3; i,ii,ii; A,B,C; etc.)
- APPLY
>

I'd normally add or remove pages by printing partial portions,
then rejoining them.

>
In Acrobat, I just select the thumbnails for the pages to delete and then
hit DELETE.  I will have to see how the labels alter if I cut a section
out of the middle.  I would imagine the FIRST page in a section is the
most critical (as it likely contains the sequencing information for its
successors)
>
I should see how rotated pages fit in the mix (they shouldn't
be handled any differently -- but, "you never know")
>
[I frequently put a B-size "fold out" in the middle of a document
and often only the recto side is numbered]
>

That doesn't appear to be practical
if 'sections' carry un-numbered or oddly-paginated groups.
0 seems particularly problematic.

>
I would address '0' as "0"; in much the same way as "IV"
or "COVER"
>

How would an end-user print the copyright page, or dedication
page, if the select-page-to-print area of the gui offers
pages ' -425 ' ?

>
With the labeling facility, you can specify "" (empty/blank)
as the page label -- as I did for the cover and early front matter
in your example.
>
If your viewer/reader software can search for page labels (which
is what all *should* be able to do as labels go WAY back in the
specification's history -- for obvious reasons), you could exploit
that ability to quickly access particular pages ("INDEX", "TABLES",
etc.) in the absence of hyperlinks in the document (of course this
means abandoning the VISIBLE page number on that page)
>

 I notice that the Foxit reader doesn't recognize the new labeling.
That's pretty popular.

Hmmmm.  From <https://pdfa.org/pdf-ux-page-labels/> (near the very end):
------------8<--------------8<----------------8<------------
"In July 2024, the PDF Association conducted an informal survey of popular desktop PDF viewers providing support for WYISIHYN navigation. Our assessment was based on a single test of whether entering the Roman numeral “iv” resulted in the page changing to PDF page 4.
"The shortlist of viewers in our survey that support WYISIHYN navigation:
     Adobe Acrobat
     Apple Preview
     Apryse PDF Studio Viewer
     Apryse Xodo PDF Studio
     FireFox (Mozilla pdf.js)
     Foxit
     PDFextra
     PDF Reader Pro (Mac)
     PDF XChange"
------------8<--------------8<----------------8<------------
This appears to apply to a test document which contains a variety of
page labels (described in the referenced page).
<https://github.com/pdf-association/pdf-differences/blob/main/PageLabels-UX/PageLabelsTest.pdf>
The entire web page is worthwhile reading (IMHO).  The anecdote provided
in the "Page labels in ISO publications" aside being typical of the effort
to USE such labeling capabilities.
Sadly, folks feel free to interpret standards any way they choose,
rationalizing that they "know" what their users want" -- even in the face
of evidence to the contrary (e.g., hundreds of years of prior art):
    "In longer or more complex documents with distinct sections, it is
     not uncommon to use Roman numerals for front matter page identifiers,
     descriptive page labels for back matter such as annexes or appendices,
     or even start a document with a page identifier other than 1. However,
     if the author/publisher fails to align the visible page identifiers
     on each page with the navigation data when users attempt to go to
     page “ix” or “12” they may end up at entirely different locations!
     Is that the 12th logical page, or the page with “12” in the footer,
     or somewhere else?"
Obviously, the problem posed in your initial post.
Also a reason why many websites point users at the "free Adobe Reader"
instead of some other substandard free/not-free product.  (Try viewing
it in Firefox; it works as expected, there)
[I suspect many of the "fillable tax forms" that are available from
gummit websites would also fail on such products  <frown> ]